Carried on the Body

This piece of jewellery is never really stored anywhere. It has remained on my wrist for almost four years and, during that time, I have rarely, if ever, taken it off. It has travelled with me across much of Europe, passing through different countries, cities, seasons and stages of my life. In photographs from this period, it often appears quietly at the edge of the image. I have become so accustomed to its presence that I sometimes forget I am wearing it. My attachment to it is also connected to the Chinese concept of benmingnian, or the zodiac year of one's birth. In the Chinese zodiac, the animal sign associated with the year of one’s birth returns every twelve years. Traditionally, benmingnian is understood to be a period in which a person may be more susceptible to uncertainty or changes in fortune. For this reason, people sometimes wear particular objects, colours, or small talismans close to the body as a form of protection and reassurance. I don't view this belief in a strictly religious sense. For me, it is more like a habit, a way of carrying something familiar with me. When I first started wearing this jewellery, it was connected to the idea of protection. But after four years, its meaning has changed. It has absorbed the places I have been, the journeys I have taken, and the ordinary movements of everyday life. As I have rarely taken it off, the jewellery has gradually become part of how I recognise my own body. I sleep with it, travel with it, work with it, and move between countries with it. Its surface has changed through contact with water, skin, the weather and time. In this sense, I no longer simply see it as something I own. It has become a small physical record of where I have been.